The Laundry Song

The Laundry Song

White Shirts

Are impossible to keep white. I've been thinking about it, and looking up solutions for keeping them white and so will post a couple of links here. Not very poetic, that may come later.

Googling "white shirt" and "poem" came up with some interesting things. Poems with that title, a whole book with that as title (by Laurie MacFayden), and lots of self-published verse.

By far the most moving, beautiful, startling, confusing, and fine is the poem, by June Jordan, called "It's Hard to Keep a Clean Shirt Clean" published on line at The Poetry Foundation, the beginning of which is this:

It’s a sunlit morning

with jasmine blooming

easily

and a drove of robin redbreasts

diving into the ivy covering

a backyard fence

what used to be

or doves shoving aside

the birch tree leaves

when

a young man walks among

the flowers

to my doorway

where he knocks

then stands still

brilliant in a clean white shirt

He lifts a soft fist

to that door

and knocks again

He’s come to say this

was or that

was

not

and what’s

anyone of us to do

about what’s done

what’s past

but prickling salt to sting

our eyes

What’s anyone of us to do

about what’s done

I tried to find a photo of a man in a white shirt, that represented the solemnity and joy of this poem, the grief and softness, but no luck. Too much pornography on the internet, women dressed in men's miliatry whites, nurses popping out of their hooker dresses.

I was resolved to find something beautiful, and switched the search to paintings. Lucky me, I found this astonishing self-portrait, appropriately titled "Man in a White Shirt" by Lucian Freud. White, gold, black, soft and harsh together. Like my hands after a day of trying to get those perspiration stains out of my own laundry.

"Laundry" by Ruth Moose

And because I can't stand not having a poem, here is a nice one that I didn't know before today.

Laundry

All our life

so much laundry;

each day’s doing or not

comes clean,

flows off and away

to blend with other sins

of this world. Each day

begins in new skin,

blessed by the elements

charged to take us

out again to do or undo

what’s been assigned.

From socks to shirts

the selves we shed

lift off the line

as if they own

a life apart

from the one we offer.

There is joy in clean laundry.

All is forgiven in water, sun

and air. We offer our day’s deeds

to the blue-eyed sky, with soap and prayer,

our arms up, then lowered in supplication.

Source: Making the Bed (Main Street Rag Press, 2004)

Laundry by Ruth Moose : The Poetry Foundation

Teaching My College-Bound Daughter to Wash Her Own Clothes

I think I'll write her a poem about doing her own laundry, but in the mean time, here are a collection of blogs advising college kids about doing their own laundry. There is not very much interesting (or worth re-posting) so I'll have to write my own advice.

"Life Is Just A Basket of Laundry" by Mary Marlowe Leverette

"Annie Gives Advice About Doing Laundry On and Off Campus" (in Illinois!)

My Own Advice

1. color (light, dark, or red)

2. temperature (cold or as hot as possible)

3. agitation (your bras or your blue jeans)

4. cloth (natural and not)

Discovering Ethel Romig Fuller

There is much that could be said about her, but I am still learning about this former Oregon Poet Laureate. This poem is a delight.

Today – Ethel Romig Fuller

I have spread wet linen

On lavender bushes,

I have swept rose petals

From a garden walk.

I have labeled jars of raspberry jam,

I have baked a sunshine cake;

I have embroidered a yellow duck

On a small blue frock.

I have polished andirons,

Dusted the highboy,

Cut sweet peas for a black bowl,

Wound the tall clock,

Pleated a lace ruffle…

To-day

I have lived a poem.

Extreme Ironing

What is not to love?

Can't find their website, but apparently there are lots of practitioners of the sport. For, example, in Australia.

Things are Looking Up

Snow. My thesis. Laundry. Art. It's a good life.
I want to blog more, but I am tired.
However, last night was the first night of our Knit Night club. We don't have much of a name yet, and three of our members (who do knit) were not knitting last night.
So, in honor of all that, here is a link to our two favorite Knitting Web Sites Ravelry and Knitty. Sorry that Knitty doesn't have a logo I could re-post here.


Also, a new fantastic poem I discovered by Emily Dickinson, about snow, and filled with laundry images. What is not to love about "It ruffles wrists of posts"?

It sifts from leaden sieves,
It powders all the wood,
It fills with alabaster wool
The wrinkles of the road.

It makes an even face
Of mountain and of plain,—
Unbroken forehead from the east
Unto the east again.

It reaches to the fence,
It wraps it, rail by rail,
Till it is lost in fleeces;
It flings a crystal veil

On stump and stack and stem,—
The summer’s empty room,
Acres of seams where harvests were,
Recordless, but for them.

It ruffles wrists of posts,
As ankles of a queen,—
Then stills its artisans like ghosts,
Denying they have been.

(Thanks to Bartleby Great Books Online.)